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Episode 1452: Play It Again, Sam
Date November 5, 2019 Summary Meg Rowley and Sam Miller banter about Ben Lindbergh’s vacation-induced absence, an unusual umpire Wikipedia entry, and the acceptability of failure, before turning their attention to a few listener emails answered during the Jeff Sullivan era, including what would happen if Giancarlo Stanton only tried to hit home runs, how they would prefer to consume baseball if they could only do so through either twitter or a livestream, and whether baseball would be better if it were played in masks. Topics * Episode 1199 follow-up: Longevity vs. talent and how to break the hits record * 'Game Balls' and players with the most WPA in team wins * Episode 1199 follow-up: What if Giancarlo Stanton only tried to hit home runs? * Episode 1312 follow-up: How Meg and Sam would prefer to consume/be fans of baseball * Is watching the game or consuming stats/stories more interesting for fans? * Episode 1240 follow-up: Would baseball be better if the players were masked? Intro Death Cab for Cutie, "I Dreamt We Spoke Again" Outro Dashboard Confessional, "Living in Your Letters" Banter * Meg flubs the intro and offers to re-record it. Otherwise Ben may never go on vacation again. Sam says, "My multi-year project with Ben, a sort of project that is at the center of our relationship, is me getting him used to failure being okay. You don't have to be perfect." He can literally phone it in sometimes when doing in the podcast. * While watching Better Call Saul, Sam noticed that there was description of a real game featuring umpire Todd Tichenor. The show had gone through the trouble to include a real umpire but his name was pronounced incorrectly. * This leads Sam down an umpire Wikipedia page rabbit hole, ending on Frank Menechino's page and a strange case of Wikipedia page vandalism involving a fake story about Menechino operating a baseball academy for blind children. Email Questions * Ethan: "Let's say that an eccentric billionaire owner has decided that Pete Rose holding the all time hits record is a disgrace and has decided to do something about it. His plan is an unusual one: he has decided to pluck a random twenty year old off the street with no baseball experience and sign him to his team. He will hit him first in the lineup every day until either the hits record is broken or this player dies of old age. The terms of the contract are (somehow) such that the player is not allowed to retire until the hits record is broken and the owner has left it in his will that this situation must continue after his own death. Do you think it is possible that this player could break the record before they suffered some catastrophic injury at age 60 that prevented them from even swinging a bat? How could you help this player out? If it's not possible for a random twenty year old, how much baseball experience would be necessary for this player to have before it was feasible?" * Andrew: "Let's say Giancarlo Stanton was under explicit instructions to try and hit a home run, and only a home run, every time he came up. How many would he hit, assuming a healthy full season?" * Mike: "Hypothetical question. Say you have to spend a year in a cabin out in the wilderness somewhere, without having to worry about your day job. No radio or TV, only internet connection. The service provider only gives you two choices: A) you have live streaming, so you can watch all the live baseball you want. But, you won’t have access to the rest of the internet, so no Twitter, Reddit, fangraphs, b-ref, MLB trade rumors, MLB network, highlights, podcasts, etc. B) you can follow baseball as you do now, but you won’t have live streaming capabilities so you can’t watch any games live or after the fact. Given the choice between only watching games and only following MLB on other media, which would let you enjoy the sport more as a fan? What would most fans choose?" * Christopher: "How effective would it be if, to drum up some interest in the general public, Rob Manfred brought in a hitherto unknown phenom young player who is essentially a 5 tool star (where this phenom exists right now is worth debating, but bear with me). The only qualification though is this player is always wearing a mask, similar to the masks worn in lucha libre wrestling in Mexico. He wears it in the field, at the plate, and in any context where he is participating in baseball or team activities. Also, to keep the air of mystery, this baseball luchador is not available pre- or postgame for interviews. He's just...gone. "Who is this mysterious player?" the public will wonder. Would this be seen as merely a gimmick (if it only lasts a season or two at most), or could this genuinely make people interested just simply for the mystery of who this man in the mask is?" Stat Blast * Sam discusses the idea of giving a game ball to the player who had the greatest impact on a team's win. He then uses WPA to see which players had the most 'game balls' for their team's wins this season. * In 2019 Justin Verlander led all players with 17 game balls, Stephen Strasburg was second with 13. Mike Trout led hitters with 12. Pitchers win around 40% of all game balls. * Sam discovers a game ball paradox: If you exclude pitchers, then Mike Trout drops to 16th place, with Matt Chapman rising to first place. Sam resolves the paradox by observing that Trout was on a team with bad pitchers, so he did not benefit much from redistribution of pitcher game balls. Notes * Sam and Meg offer their own answers to some email questions answered by Ben and Jeff in previous episodes. Sam offers up Ethan's question as an example of one that he wouldn't have agreed to answer. * If Stanton only tried to hit home runs for an entire season, Sam predicts that he would hit 65. Meg hings he would hit 41. Links * Effectively Wild Episode 1452: Play It Again, Sam * 73! 61! 37! What's the real home run record, anyway? by Sam Miller * Reddit comment about Frank Menechino fantasy league Category:Episodes Category:Email Episodes